The Plug-in Hybrid is Next, by Eric Peters

They would really prefer that you not drive at all. From Eric Peters at ericpetersautos.com:

Engineers are clever people. Throw a “mandate” or “regulation” at them and they’ll find a way to comply with it – thus regularly defeating the true purpose of the mandate or regulation, which was issued in the hope it could not be complied with.

Tailpipe emissions standards, for instance, were meant to eliminate engines – not pollution. But the engineers figured out how to make engines emit so little pollution that not only did engines survive, they thrived. By the 1990s, V8 and V12 engines produced lower emissions than the four cylinder engines of the ’70s. And they produced more power (and used less gas, an “emissions control” rarely acknowledged) than most of the V8s of the ’60s and ’70s.

By the early 2000s, no engine in any new vehicle emitted much of anything other than water vapor and carbon dioxide, neither gas worsening or having anything to do with air pollution. So, naturally, the definition of  “emissions” was changed – and CO2 became one, just like that. Much in the same way we are told that a man can become a woman, just like that. It doesn’t matter whether it’s true. What matters is that such beliefs – relentlessly pushed – can then be used to further an agenda.

All of a sudden, engines that had qualified under the old definitions of “emissions” as partial zero emissions (PZEV) engines – note that you never see those badges anymore – were the new (and “gross”) “polluters” and engines – all of them – were once again in the crosshairs. The only way to comply with the new regulations – and mandates, which now included zero emissions vehicle (ZEV) production quotas – appeared to be to get rid of engines, since no matter how “clean” an engine is, a running engine will necessarily result in the “emissions” of carbon dioxide (and water vapor).

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